


Sleep Is The Most Intimate Thing

by vihistoo



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: F/M, Implied Sexual Content, Sleep, not even that sexual, opera had me feeling poetic and deep
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-29
Updated: 2015-03-29
Packaged: 2018-03-20 06:45:40
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,271
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3640635
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vihistoo/pseuds/vihistoo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Sleeping next to someone, not with someone, is perhaps the most intimate you will ever be with another human. In sleep, we are completely supple and childlike. Our hard exterior falls away when the sand hits our eyes. The way you sleep, with your face softened and your arms wrapped around my waist, is the most beautiful thing." - Michelle K., I Miss Sleeping Next To You</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sleep Is The Most Intimate Thing

**Author's Note:**

> I was listening to opera and reading poetry and just feeling really deep and poetic. 
> 
> This is the result of Léo Delibes, John Keats, and three days without sleep. Enjoy.
> 
> -Love, V -  
> p.s. the memory is in italics

_"Sleeping next to someone, not with someone, is perhaps the most intimate you will ever be with another human. In sleep, we are completely supple and childlike. Our hard exterior falls away when the sand hits our eyes. The way you sleep, with your face softened and your arms wrapped around my waist, is the most beautiful thing."_

_\- Michelle K., I Miss Sleeping Next To You -_

 

His skin is like marble, she thinks; scratched and scraped porcelain.

The light is soft and provides a lucent glow, one of escamotage, tricking the mind into thinking it comes from below the surface of his skin rather than from above. Translucent, she thinks, gazing across the road map of his veins, broken up and dissected by scars, new and old. In the moonlight from her window, his hair is wine-dark; black and purple-red. With his elegant hand thrown across his chest in disarray and the white duvet crumpled around his form, he is of a strong likeness to the Blessed Ludovica Albertoni. An idealisation of Death. He is ethereal in sleep. Although some nights he twitches and screams, he is still now, only the somehow soothing motion of his chest belaying some sign of life. Bittersweet sentiment.

Her hand seizes with the need to touch him, so she does. She trails her fingertips over the lines of his face, made by worry and care and all the things he tucks underneath his ribs. He is utterly enchanting, and once again (it's happened many times, and will happen many times more) her breath is taken away, and a surge of overwhelming emotion raises her heartbeat to her ears, rendering her thoughts mere static. She remembers the spark of his lips against hers, the spark of his eyes when they meet hers. Glasz, they are, green-blue-yellow-grey. She flattens her hand against his chest, and the pleasure she feels at the simple touch is warm in her palm, in her belly. She lets her thumb follow the outline of his pectoral as she drags her hand across his silk-skin until she meets the graceful line of his collarbone, straight across his chest like a shelf to hold his intelligence and beauty. Her fingertips rest in the hollow his shoulder and collar create to feel his pulse through his carotid artery.

He stirs, moan carried on an exhale dancing in her ears. She sighs in response, and knows that she will never be free of him. Though her career does not allow her the luxury of believing in a god, it is a blessing, she muses, that he appears to feel the same way. There is doubt, of course, for she is she, and he is he, but in this moment, they are equal - in vulnerability, at least. The things she feels for him scare her, they frighten her in their intensity. She would do anything for him. She would die for him. She would kill for him. She's already helped him die, and ipso facto, she's helped him kill.

There is lethality, there is danger in his lean frame. He is no hero, but he is heroic. Constantly she is awed by his actions, by the complete selflessness he hides behind belligerent demands and nonchalant insults. In the light of their new-found intimacy and romance, he has allowed her glimpses of his exhaustion, and her chest burns with the need to weep. One night, she had been awakened by knocking on her door, and because he had been somewhere in the world she had opened it immediately. The memory comes with absolute clarity.

 

_There is a form sagging towards her, and although shock and worry has her momentarily paralyzed, her body acts without conscious volition, throwing her arms out to catch the body. A familiar groan of pain sounds in her ears and she moves quickly, hefting him into her arms and kicking her door closed._

 

_"Molly,"_

_he breathes._

 

_She lays him carefully onto the couch, holding a hand on his neck to steady him. She quickly scans his form, noticing how frightfully thin he is, but she sees no blood. Confusion wrinkles her brow, and she looks to him for guidance._

 

_"I'm not hurt,"_

_he whispers, eyes closing, hand reaching for hers._

 

_She swallows hard, sudden terror making her heart beat in her throat. Her shaking fingers grasp his tightly, carefully._

 

_"What do you need?"_

_she asks, lips trembling around the words._

 

_His hand is unsteady as it rises to cup her cheek, and he sighs, and he sounds like Atlas, supporting the entire world on his shoulders. His skin is pale, and his eyes seem far too old and haunted, surrounded by smudged rings of weariness._

 

_"You,"_

_he sighs._

 

_Her breathing stutters and she has to calm before she speaks._

 

_"What's wrong?"_

 

_He shudders once, powerfully, before he chokes on a sob. His voice breaks when he answers._

 

_"I'm so tired."_

 

_Her stomach twists in helplessness. She has no power in this situation, the only one who can finish this is him, and she wants to scream and rage. His uncharacteristic weakness makes her furious. She wants to wring the bastard that's done this to him, but the coward had blown the back of his skull out before she had the chance._

 

_"You are also strong,"_

_she reminds him._

_"You can do this. You can beat this. You are made of so many more things than can defeat you. You are a god amoungst men."_

 

_He opens his eyes, and there is something swirling, something growing in his watery gaze. In the dimness, his tears look as if they are blood._

 

_"You are a giver amoungst beggars,"_

_he says softly._

_"You are a saviour amoungst those who pray."_

 

_Tears prick at the corners of her eyes and she feels too uncovered in this moment, all her soft bits displayed before him. She holds his knuckles against her lips, and he lets her. He falls asleep, and she stays by his side, leaving only to gather a blanket to shelter him in._

_She wakes the next morning to the sensation of a hand stroking her hair, and she rubs her cheek briefly against his hip before tensing, suddenly remembering who it is exactly._

 

_"They can never know. They can never know how much this has cost me,"_

_he says, voice gravely and drunk with sleep._

 

 

_"Sherlock,"_

_she says._

_"I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry you have to do this. I'm so sorry."_

 

_His hand stills on her scalp and she berates herself. He doesn't need sobbing. He doesn't need pity. If John were here he'd be strong. He doesn't need her._

_He grasps at her hair, and she raises her head at his insistence. He pulls her up, where she lays draped across his chest. His heartbeat is erratic under her ear._

 

_"You will never know how beholden I am to you,"_

_he says, a soft touch of words that makes her chest constrict._

 

_"You don't owe me anything,"_

_she insists._

_"We are the ones who owe you. If it's hero worship, so be it, but you walk so high above us, on all the good things you've done, all things you've put before yourself. You've saved lives, you've given people closure, all at the expense of yourself. You've given up everything for us. We owe you, Sherlock."_

 

_There is silence, and his pattern of breathing stutters and stumbles, and he makes a low noise in the back of his throat. He squeezes her; frail, thin limbs cording around her tighter._

 

_"Thank you, Molly,"_

_he whispers._

_"Thank you so much, for everything you've given up for me."_

 

A tear silently treks down her cheek at the memory. She leans into into him, setting her lips against his sleep-warm skin, burying herself in the scent of his honey-sweet slumber. His sudden deep breath is a sign he is about to wake, and she kisses him lightly, peppering his chest and collarbone with brushes of her mouth. Her hand makes slow passes down his stomach, circling to follow the slope of his ribs to his sternum, where she begins again. He shifts under her slight weight and groans. She balances on an elbow and waits.

His eyes flutter open, and the cosmos stares back at her. Silence is a gentle hush around them and he smooths a hand up her back, pulling her down, where he tucks her into the crevices and cracks of his body. She can feel his lips brush against her forehead, and she shivers.

 

"What were you thinking of, my love?"

he asks, and she shivers again, his deep, thunderous voice rumbling through her chest, the endearment curling under her breasts where they press against his ribcage.

 

"You,"

she answers, lowering her hand and shifting so she can pet his hipbone.

 

His hand sweeps up and down her back, neck to rump, and he is quiet, knowing she will speak in time.

 

"I have no words to explain how much I love you. My heart beats for you, I breathe for you. When you're near me, when you kiss me, when you touch me, I feel like the most beautiful thing. I've never felt like this, not with anyone. You're the only one that does this to me. I want to stay in this bed with you forever. I want to love you forever, and I'm positive I will. I love you, Sherlock. It's frightening how much I love you. Anything you need, I'll give it to you. I'll give you everything I have, everything I am until I have nothing else, until I am nothing else but my love for you,"

she breathes, words almost lost as they brush against his skin, over his heart.

"I know you don't feel as strongly, and please don't feel bad. Please don't think you're doing something wrong. It's okay, it's fine, truly. I know you care for me in your own way."

 

He has gone completely still, and she wonders if she has made a grave mistake, but before she can apologise and swallow her words she is forcefully rolled onto her back, and he hovers over her. His hand flutters before it drops onto her sternum, fingers just brushing the underside of her breasts. When he rests his head above his hand she threads scalpel-scarred fingers into his hair, concern washing over her when the inconsistent drop of tears paint her skin.

 

"You are my raison d'etre,"

he breathes.

"You are the most important reason for my existence. I wake every day because I know I will see you next to me. You saved me. You save me. I fought because of you. Because you believed in me, because I knew I could come here and you would be waiting for me. I love you. I will always love you. Molly-"

 

He is cut off by a hitch in his breathing, and she lovingly rubs her thumbs into his shoulders, ignoring the burning in her throat and eyes.

 

"Molly, I love you because you love me. I have never, in all my years, in all my experience, in all my travels, ever met a person like you. You don't belong here, on earth with us lowly mortals. You belong in myths, in legends, books of religion. You are a goddess, an ethereal being comprised entirely of love, generosity, and selflessness. You deserve to be given sacrifices, you deserve to be built shrines. I am but one man, but I will worship you until the end of my days. I don't know how you do it. I don't know how you get up everyday and love me. All I know is that I'll never let you go. I would be nothing without you. I would be nothing, Molly. Never doubt that I love you. Never doubt that the strength of my love for you absolutely terrifies me, because it does."

 

There are tears streaming down her face in great, big drops, because there is something very big and very deep happening and it makes her chest feel very full. She pulls him up to her and they wrap around each other, limbs losing ownership and becoming one mass under the duvet. Their breaths wash over each other, foreheads pressed together. Affection is passed in soft touches, kisses long and intense, quickened breath.

They make love. They touch, they taste, gasp and moan. Heartbeats are matched, breath is synced, care is expressed in the press of salt-slicked skin against salt-slicked skin. She is honoured to brush her hands over him, honoured to make his eyes burn and his mouth part. He is honoured to squeeze her, honoured to make her lashes flutter and her lips red. He moves above her, and there is nothing more perfect than the slot of his hips against hers. They were made for each other. It's known to them, known to their friends, known to the stars and planets that are a pattern on the ebony that blankets them. They hold close; thighs bracket hips, arms bracket visage, fingers lock, ankles lock; and they fit. Of course they fit.

Time is ephemeral or everlasting but, either way, morning comes. They hide from it together, counting freckles, tracing white scars over white flesh, trading breath for the insistent press of the other's mouth. In the end, she is she, and he is he, but they are we, they are I. Like a puzzle; complex, because he won't take them any other way, where the solution is only known to them, and only known in three salt-slicked, sleep-warm, honey-sweet words.

 

_I love you._

 

 

_end._


End file.
